Fishburn and Hughes: "In the Biblical account, the first man. The story of Adam's creation is related twice in Genesis: first, as part of the general creation of the world, in 1:26-31, and later in more detail at 2:7: 'And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.' The reference to 'red Adam' can be explained by its Hebrew etymology, in which Adam means both man and red. Gnostic theories linking the creation of Adam by demiurges with the creation of an homunculus - a being who is soul-less until instructed in certain rites - has roots in Cabbalistic interpretations of the creation of Adam. The description of the wizard who 'uttered lawful syllables of a powerful name and slept' before achieving his dream is an allusion to Cabbalistic belief in the creative power brought by knowledge of the secret combination of God's name. J. Alazraki, in 'Borges and the Kabbalah', TriQuarterly, 1972, points to certain parallels between the act of creation in 'The Circular Ruins' and the Cabbalistic account of the creation of Adam where, by permutation of the numbers corresponding to the letters of Adam and YHWY (see Tetragrammaton), the creation of Adam is identified with that of God himself." (3)